Your Red Cross Update

By Julia Maniccia

“We are so focused on responding and getting a job done, but that isn’t how you touch peoples’ lives. You do that by listening to them, talking to them, letting them tell their story and finding out what they need. Then you help them,” is a sentiment that has guided Briana Taylor, first by a career in psychology, and later by two decades of service with the American Red Cross.

Briana’s introduction to disaster response was happenstance. In her professional role in mental health, Briana had spent many years working to alleviate human suffering on an individual level, tending to the needs of her patients in their darkest hour. In 2004, Briana was vacationing in Phuket, Thailand with her family, briefly taking off her psychologist hat, when a tsunami took to the island’s shores. Six weeks later, her drive to alleviate suffering took flight on the community-level, as she returned to Thailand to support islanders in their recovery.

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